As an adult, we have the right to complain about how no one is making any good music anymore. Of course, plenty of people are, but nothing beats the bands that you pine nostalgically for because they don't exist anymore. So excuse us while we revisit another era of live music in NYC. We started this series out with Apes & Androids, the #1 band we miss, and now in no order whatsoever, we'll move along. Up next: The Fever.
THE FEVER
To start with, here is a short excerpt from a January entry in our 1994 high school journal: "I love Chris Ruggiero. He is really smart and the guitarist for ACID HOWL!" According to the same journal, later that year, on March 4th, he sat next to us in the movie theater during Reality Bites. After the credits rolled, exiting the theater with our group of friends, he randomly stopped, grabbed our face, and did this, word for word:
Did we mention he knew about our crush on him, and blah blah blah we sort of realized he was a jerk and moved on. So, fast forward through the rest of high school, through college, and to the early aughts. There we were in New York City with a total music crush on some new band called The Fever. At some point—Rothko? Remember Rothko?—we saw this band live, and guess who their guitarist was?
The thing with this band was that they went by these stupid fake names (his was "Sanchez Esquire"), so there was no way of knowing until seeing them live. We didn't really want to like this band, but this guy really was some sort of musical genius (you guys, he was in ACID HOWL, remember) and this band was really fun to see live.
The Fever started out in 2001, with Geremy Jasper (vocals) and Chris "Sanchez" Ruggiero (guitar), eventually expanding to a five-piece that also included Ruggiero's brother J. The band signed with Kemado Records in 2002, toured with the likes of Death From Above 1979, Metric, and The Kills. At the time, Jasper described their sound:“I feel the natural sound of New York City has influenced our music a lot. New York is very tense, loud and kind of nervous, but also very beautiful and inspirational at the same time. There's a certain intensity and immediacy here. Things are kind of sped up here. I could never sit on a porch with an acoustic guitar and just sing about trees.”When they moved on to headlining bigger venues like Bowery Ballroom, their stage show included massive projections, and moody lighting—unsurprising, since their final album (from 2006) was inspired by Fellini and David Lynch.
We have no idea where these guys are now, so here's a listen back to some of those songs we raged on to:
"Bridge & Tunnel" from their Pink on Pink
"Ladyfingers" from their Pink on Pink
"Grey Ghost" from their Red Bedroom release
"Redhead" from their final album, City of Sleep
